


lover of the light

by nolightss



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blind Character, Multi, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-04
Updated: 2014-11-04
Packaged: 2018-02-24 01:46:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2563721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nolightss/pseuds/nolightss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Tonight, though, the moon is fuller and brighter than you’ve ever seen it, and his face is bathed in a perfect, milky light. His eyes, unfocused and staring off over your left shoulder seem more alive than you’ve ever seen, nearly glowing in the moonlight."</p><p>Jack and Crutchie grow up together. They meet Davey, then Katherine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	lover of the light

"Anyone sitting here?"

You look up to find a boy, a bit taller than you, clothes mismatched and eyes screwed shut, with a hand on the empty chair beside you.

"Nope! It’s all yours," You tell him. You turn back to your drawing, surprised. Nobody ever sits next to you, not on purpose.

"What’s your name?" he asks cheerfully, propping his head on his hands and facing you.

"Charlie," you tell him, decidedly leaving out the nicknames the other boys like to throw at you, figuring maybe he’ll never find out.

His expression brightens as you speak, a smile edging its way onto his face. “I’m Jack,” he says, and the words seem to exude confidence, so much so that you can’t help but smile at him.

"Were ya sitting by yourself?" he asks. You look around before answering.

"Yeah. I don’t got a lotta friends," you look at your lap, wondering why you keep talking, more than you ever do with the rest of the class.

"I’ll be your friend, if you wanna be mine?" Jack proposes, and you notice he’s hardly stopped moving since he’s sat down, legs swinging and hands gesturing as he speaks.

You find yourself getting excited despite yourself. “Yeah, I’d like that!”

-

At recess, two weeks later, from the bench you’ve claimed since kindergarten, you watch him walk in circles around the blacktop. His hand drags along the chain link of the fence lining the asphalt, and he walks with a confidence that looks like it could be dangerous.

Which is exactly why you join him.

You catch up to him behind one of the basketball hoops, and he cocks his head at your presense, unsure of who it is.

"Hi!" you say, hoping he can hear you over the other shouts in the schoolyard.

He smiles when he realizes it’s you. 

“Hey, Charlie. Can you tell me how tall this fence is?” he asks, gesturing vaguely at the sky.

You give him a funny look.

"Pretty tall. Why?"

"Could I climb it?"

"Probably not."

"Darn. I wanted to sit on top and feel the wind!" he quickens his pace, a bounce in his step, "I bet it’s cool all the way up there. We coulda both gone!"

You laugh along with him, and glance at him. He’s got a smile wider than the Brooklyn bridge plastered on his face, and eyes still closed to the world. You wonder if he’s ever opened them.

You keep walking in silence, and he slows his pace, realizing you’re just a bit slower than him. He stops, about ten minutes later, and tilts his head again, as though listening.

"What’s that sound you make when you walk?"

You giggle, hiding your face behind your hand.

"What’s so funny?" he implores, although the beginnings of a smile are creeping onto his face.

"Nothing!" you insist. "It’s a crutch. It helps me walk better."

He thinks that over, for a minute and then nods.

"Oh. Okay. Just wondering!" he pauses, "Wait. can I call you Crutchie now?"

"I guess so," you say with a laugh, "but only you’re allowed to call me that."

"Deal," he says, nodding seriously, a smirk playing on his lips.

  
-

Middle school came along, three years later, bringing a weird feeling into your stomach and a sense of adventure into Jack’s.

He’s got an arm looped in yours, like he has for the past year now, and hasn’t stopped talking since you left the house.

"I heard the bathroom on the third floor has a window so big you could climb out of it!"

"If I find you sitting on a rooftop on the first day of school, Jack, I swear to god."

He laughs at that, cheerful and sunny and you let him drag you through the day.

-

Jack’s sunny disposition seems to dip below an imagined horizon, eventually, and he talks to you less, doesn’t pour out his heart the way he used to.

You still do your homework on his bed and help him with his, reading off math problems and recording answers as he solves them out loud and you wonder if you could stay like that forever, pressed side by side on a too-small bed, afternoon light dancing across his hands and yours and his face and yours.

"Hey Crutchie?" he asks on a thursday afternoon, head on your lap and pulling you from your book.

"Yeah?"

"What do the other kids say about me? When I’m not around?" his voice is more worried than you’ve ever heard it, and the question catches you off guard. You’ve gotten used to the weird looks over time, stopped noticing them, really, and you thought they rolled off Jack’s back too, until now.

"Well, you know race and romeo don’t say anything about you, if that’s anything," and you know that’s not what he meant, but you can’t bring yourself to drag up every bad comment and spitting look you’ve both gotten in the last two years. Not without dragging up some biting emotions with it.

Jack sighs. If it’s relief or him just giving in, you can’t tell but you let it go, bury your hands in his hair and try to focus on your book.

-

The first time you kiss Jack is in eighth grade. You’ve started sitting on your back deck, staring up at the stars, and he’s pressed against your side, evening chill creeping into the summer air.

He once asked you what the stars were like, and you’d tried to describe them, tried to encapsulate their perfect and gentle light.

_"Are they like your freckles?”  
“A little bit, yeah.”_

Since then you’ve started tracing the constellations across his palm, a map of the cosmos coating his skin.

Tonight, though, the moon is fuller and brighter than you’ve ever seen it, and his face is bathed in a perfect, milky light. his eyes, unfocused and staring off over your left shoulder seem more alive than you’ve ever seen, nearly glowing in the moonlight.

You take his face in your hands, then, and he startles, hands moving to cover yours and you kiss him, slow and soft, letting your eyes flutter close and your lips move gently with his.

He laughs when you break away, and you can’t stop looking at him, can’t stop yourself from soaking in all that he can’t, saving it just for him.

-

"Is this seat taken?"

The boy is tall, lanky and awkward, shirt buttoned up a little too high and hair just a little too neat, and you nod.

He wedges himself on the lunch table bench between you and Race, and while you’ve all only been in this school a little while now, you can tell he’s been here even less. He doesn’t seem to notice, though, either through confidence or obliviousness, and you have a feeling it’s the latter.

"Hey, kid, even I can tell you’re shoveling. What’s the rush?" Jack’s voice pulls you from your thoughts and you glance at him, and then at the boy seated next to you, frozen with a sandwich halfway to his mouth.

"Nothing- I mean- no reason, I guess," he puts the sandwich down and looks you over, and then Jack, and then Romeo, who seemed to have found someone across the isle to talk to.

"I’m David. By the way. I’m new."

Jack laughs at that, as though he can already tell, and you kick him under the table.

"Good to meet you, Davey," he says through a giggle, managing to stress the second syllable of the nickname.

You turn to Davey and smile. "Apologies, I’m Charlie. He calls me Crutchie though. You can too, if you want.” You gesture at Jack as you speak, and he smiles through a cafeteria burger, big enough to light the whole school.

-

Davey began to trail along with you and Jack as time went on, began to slowly open up to the group.

The anxiety didn’t seem to fade, though, all shaky hands and stuttered sentences. You found yourself wanting to take his hands when they shook, do something to help him relax, but kept your distance.

Jack, however, had no problem latching onto Davey, you noticed, immediately taking both of you on each arm, clearly relishing the touch, and eventually, Davey joined your small circle of friends.

-

"Hey Crutchie?"

You’re seated comfortably across from Davey, occupying a quiet and empty corner of the library.

"Yeah?"

"Do you consider Jack to be your brother?"

You look at Davey, a laugh creeping in your throat, but then realize he’s serious.

"We- uh, we’ve kissed? A bit?" you try, not really sure how to define your relationship with Jack, since neither of you ever bothered before.

Davey’s face flushes beet red and he stares at you.

"Oh. Oh! I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable!" he says quickly, fidgeting with his fingers and then staring at his lap, clealy caught somewhere between disappointment and embarrassment.

And then it hits you.

"Y’know, Davey, we could kiss too, if you wanted?"

Davey freezes, and you think, for a second, that he’s going to leave.

And then he kisses you. He leans across the side table between you, all arms and legs, and kisses you. It’s a short little thing, and it seems to have surprised him as much as it surprised you.

He then sits back in his seat, straightens his collar and tells you, “I’d like that, yeah.”

-

You watched Jack kiss Davey two weeks later, across a tipped over lunch tray and a newly-stained pair of sneakers.

It also was quick, casual, so seemingly routine that it felt odd to ask Jack about it later.

"I don’t know, it just. Felt right? I guess? Probably looked ridiculous, didn’t we."

"Only a little."

"Was it the chocolate milk on the converse?"

"Probably."

You then, a few minutes later, found yourself at an impasse.

"I can still kiss you, right?" In all honesty, you felt stupid asking the question, but really, there was no other way. Jack seemed put off by the question.

"Of course we can! If you’se okay with it, that is." He faces you and takes your hand, perhaps to reassure himself you’re still there.

"Yeah, I’m okay with it!"

A beat.

"You do know I’ve kissed Davey too, right?"

Jack sits up straight at that and cocks his head at you.

"Yeah," you confirm, unsure of his reaction.

Then he tips his head back and laughs, and all you want to do is kiss the smile off his lips.

-

"Is this seat taken?"

The party was Racetrack’s idea, somehow hosted by Jojo, and you don’t envy the look you suspect he’ll get when his parents return home.

Regardless, you’ve made yourself quite comfortable, pressed against Jack’s side, lips trailing kisses up exposed neck and your hand, entwined with Davey’s as he works his lips against Jack’s, eliciting laughs and noises of pleasure from his mouth.

You pause to look at the speaker, and find the girl from your journalism class last semester, a hand on her hip and the other pointed at Jack’s lap.

You snort, bury your face in Jack’s shoulder and leave the explaining to Davey, and you can practically feel Jack perking up at Davey’s words.

"Best seat in the house, saved just for you," he quips and you can’t hold back the laughter then, and you can feel Davey laughing from Jack’s other side.

Katherine, your alcohol riddled brain supplies, the name for the girl now straddling Jack’s lap, kissing Davey and then you, her lips soft and Budweiser flavored, and you don’t think you want her to stop, and somehow, surrounded by him and him and her, you feel warmer than you’ve ever felt.

**Author's Note:**

> Also posted on my tumblr [here](http://crutchies.tumblr.com/post/101298833013/)


End file.
